"The Library should be just down this hallway." Thrycia said. "Assuming Nadia is telling the truth."

Katja glanced over her shoulder cautiously. She didn't see anyone, but she couldn't shake the feeling they were being followed.

The two women were walking at a brisk pace down a hallway identical to every other one they'd been in since coming to this accursed place, save that is was completely deserted.

Sure, everywhere else, the other maids and slaves had been pretty thin on the ground, you could lose an entire army of slaves in a place this big, but it had been nearly half an hour and they hadn't seen a single solitary maid cleaning.

Katja muttered a curse as she reached down and rolled up on of her sleeves for about the thousandth time. Both of the women had on one of the sorceress' enchanted dresses. While Nadia had been explaining to her two allies how to get to the library, a pair of maids had made the mistake of coming into the room.

Despite the hardships they'd been through, neither adventuress had had much trouble overwhelming the two maids. They'd had ample supplies of rope and a pair of ballgags left by their captors, and the two maids had quickly found themselves hogtied in a corner, naked as they day they were born.

Katja had put on one of the dresses, finding it to be a little too small. To her surprise, a moment later, the dress had expanded, to fit her perfectly, the smooth, green silk fabric hugging every curve perfectly. That had reminded her of the other spells the sorceress had woven into the dresses.

Fortunately, Nadia had pulled out a small knife and made a pair of small cuts on the hem of the two dresses. "That should be enough to release the spells." She'd told them, than muttered a magical command word. She nodded, satisfied, when nothing happened.

Leaving their captives to wriggle and groan as best they could, and hope for rescue, the three had split up. Thrycia and Katja to the library, to try and steal one of the sorceress' tomes, Nadia to gather the supplies for their escape, and pay a little visit to her former mistress…


"This is it." Thrycia said, halting in front of an otherwise unremarkable door, near indistinguishable from the ones on either side of it, or the ones they'd been passing by for the last hour, for that matter.   

Katja shrugged. The directions Nadia had given them hadn't made since to her, the magical geography of the sorceress' home didn't quite follow the normal rules of cardinal direction Katja or anyone else for that matter, was used to, but Thrycia was an elf, and she had a talent for such things, even if she had only a most rudimentary training in such matters.  

Thrycia grabbed the brass knob and opened the door. Having become inured to such surprises in the last couple of days, Katja was unfazed, when the door opened into a balcony looking down on a cavernous hall one could easily lose a small castle. The ceiling was high enough even the tallest tower wouldn't come close to scraping it. A pair of staircases on either side led down into the expanse.

The hall was filled from end to end with tall bookshelves overflowing with books. Being a sorceress' library, the books ranged in size from tiny tomes small enough a mouse could easily read them, to massive manuscripts big enough that Katja doubted she could even lift one.

"Alright, well let's…" Katja began, when she was suddenly cut off.

"And what are you two doing here?" A woman said. Her voice wasn't loud, in fact, it wasn't more than a whisper, but it cut through the silence. Katja turned as a tall, slim woman climbed one of the staircases onto the balcony.

She was dressed, not like the maids, but in a loose fitting set of brown robes, belted at the waist. The hood was thrown back to reveal a pale, gaunt face. The woman's brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun. Large spectacles were perched on her narrow, hawkish nose, narrow, grey eyes blazed at the two women through the clear glass.  

Nadia had told them the sorceress' librarian was another apprentice of the sorceress. She was diligently loyal to her mistress. Katja gulped. Not another magic-user. Best to play it safe. She thought.

"Sorry, we were just looking for a book." She said, giving a slight grin. "We just love reading. Can't get enough of books, you know." The librarian wasn't swayed by Katja's bluff. She looked angrier if anything.  

"You know very well, only the mistress is allowed to read these books." The librarian said, frowning. "The only ones allowed here apart from the mistress are me and my assistants." She waved one thin hand in the direction of the shelves.

Glancing over, Katja could see a dozen or so small figures moving amongst the shelves. The girls were naked, save for their bindings; their pale skin glowed in the gloom. Each girl's arms were pulled tight behind her back and locked in a leather monoglove.

Leather straps from the glove circled the girl's chest, above and below her breasts, and another attaching to a leather belt around her waist. Another thick strap went between her legs, attaching to the end of the glove, holding it down. Each girl's ankles were shackled, slowing them to a slow walk.

The girls were gagged with the same harness gag Katja and Thrycia had had the misfortune of experiencing, with a long feather duster attached. Each girl had on a leather blindfold as well. Despite that, they moved carefully up and down the aisles, carefully dusting each shelf. She could see other girls, similarly secured, moving about shelving and rearranging the books.

Katja gulped. Cleaning one room like that had been hard enough, but even if there had been a hundred girls instead of a dozen, they could never work fast enough to finish the job. "My, mistake…" she stammered. "We'll just be going then…" She turned to leave, gesturing to Thrycia to follow.

"Wait…" the librarian said, suddenly grinning, which didn't make Katja feel any better. "You see, I'm always so short staffed here. And it's not very often anyone comes down here anymore. I'd be remiss in my duties if I didn't add you to my staff. Besides, you said you two loved book…"

The librarian muttered the word of power to activate the spell in Katja and Thrycia's dresses. Her eyes widened with surprise when nothing happened. That was all the opening Katja needed. She slugged the woman hard across the jaw before she could try to cast another spell, knocking her senseless.

"Thank you Nadia." Katja muttered. She clamped a hand across the librarian's mouth as she came to. Thrycia hurried forward and, using Nadia's knife, cut the librarian's robes into strips to tie her up with. Katja stuffed a wad of cloth in her mouth before tying another between her teeth to gag her.

"Mmmppphhh!!!" The librarian screamed into her gag, but whatever words of power she was trying to invoke, her gag muffled slurs failed to summon any magic. Katja and Thrycia had no trouble hogtying the woman.

Leaving her to squirm, Thrycia hurried down one of the stairwells to the main floor, Katja hurrying after here. "Let's see…" Thrycia muttered. "It should be here somewhere…" she scanned the titles of the books, many written in languages Katja didn't even recognize. A few, the letters on the spin seemed to twist and change as she tried to read them, giving her a head ache.

"Here it is." Thrycia said, finding the book she was looking for. She pulled the book off the shelf and handed it to Katja. "This is the one she said to look for." They ran back, dodging around the slaves who continued to mindlessly dust the shelves, ignorant of what was going on around them.

The librarian grunted indignantly into her gag as they ran past her. She was no closer to pulling free then when they'd tied her up. Good. Katja had a feeling she didn't want to be here when she managed to get loose.

They hurried down the hallway. Katja glanced around every corner, but she saw no one, before they made it to the room Nadia had told them to meet her at. She was already there. Her eyes widened as Katja handed her the book.

"Yes, this is the one we need." She opened the book and flipped through several pages, her eyes rapidly gliding over the letters. Though Katja was familiar with most of the major trade languages and a few minor ones, she didn't recognize the characters on the page. Nadia nodded. "This should be enough to guide us through the mistress' fog safely."

"And the mistress?" Thrycia asked.

Nadia shook her head. "No good. I got close to her personal chambers, but one of the maids told me the mistress is getting ready to conduct a magical ritual. With the potions she's taken, she'll be awake the better part of a month casting it. Probably for the best. She'll be too distracted to notice us missing until we're long gone."

Nadia shrugged "Don't worry. She'll get hers sooner or later. I've got my own score to settle with her." She patted the book they'd stolen. "And this will tell me how. It'll take some time to study it, though, and I'd rather do that somewhere other than here."

Nadia gestured to a table. Two packs were set on the table. "I managed to get some supplies for you two. I can summon my own." Katja grimaced. She'd had summoned food before and though it beat starvation, the magically created food tasted…off, to anyone who hadn't been raised from birth on it. She shouldered a pack. "Well, what are we waiting around her for?" Katja asked.

Nadia walked over to the door. She shut it and muttered some words. When she opened it, Katja found herself looking out into the forest. Despite all she'd seen since coming here, Katja was more than a little surprised. Nadia chuckled at her companion's surprise. "It's a simple little trick one learns from living in a magical home for any time. With any luck, the mistress won't notice my little change to the architecture."

Despite Nadia's assurances, Katja and Thrycia kept up a brisk pace, wanting to get as far as they could from the mistress and her cursed house as they could. The fog swirled around the trees on either side, but this time, the path was clear of mist. Quickly, the fog dissipated and thinned, before disappearing altogether.

The sun shone down through the green branches. A bird chirped from its perch nearby. Katja smiled. Like a nightmare in the morning, their ordeal was finally over…